Actor Glenda Jackson, a two-time Oscar winner who later served as a socialist politician in the British parliament for 23 years, has died. She was 87.
One of four daughters of a bricklayer and a cleaning lady in northwest England, Jackson never forgot her roots even as she made her name as one of the greatest women actors of her generation.
Her agent said she had died at her home in southeast London after a brief illness.
Raw-boned, pallid and angular, with striking, sharp eyes, she had starred on stage, television and film before quitting to take up politics, declaring: “An actor’s life is not interesting”.
The current lawmaker for Jackson’s former seat in parliament said she was devastated to hear of her predecessor’s death.
“A formidable politician, an amazing actress and a very supportive mentor to me. Hampstead and Kilburn will miss you Glenda,” Tulip Siddiq said on Twitter.
Growing up in Birkenhead, Cheshire, Jackson left school at the age of 15 and found work in a shop before winning a place at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
She won her first Academy Award in 1971 as lead actress for her role as a headstrong artist in director Ken Russell’s film of D.H. Lawrence’s novel “Women in Love”.
Her second Oscar came three years later for “A Touch of Class”, a romantic comedy directed by Melvin Frank in which Jackson played a harried fashion designer caught up in a catastrophic love affair with an American businessman in London.
Jackson also won two Emmy awards for her portrayal of England’s Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC’s 1971 television series “Elizabeth R”.
Besides her serious film roles, Jackson also showed her popular, comic touch when she appeared in some of British television’s most-loved comedy shows of the day, starring as Cleopatra in a sketch with duo Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise and appearing on “The Muppet Show”.
